HEARING BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE

Transcription

1 S. HRG OPEN HEARING WITH FORMER FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY HEARING BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017 Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence ( Available via the World Wide Web: U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE PDF WASHINGTON : 2017 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) ; DC area (202) Fax: (202) Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

2 JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho MARCO RUBIO, Florida SUSAN COLLINS, Maine ROY BLUNT, Missouri JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma TOM COTTON, Arkansas JOHN CORNYN, Texas SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE [Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.] RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, Chairman MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Vice Chairman DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California RON WYDEN, Oregon MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico ANGUS KING, Maine JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia KAMALA HARRIS, California MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio CHARLES SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Ex Officio JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio CHRIS JOYNER, Staff Director MICHAEL CASEY, Minority Staff Director KELSEY STROUD BAILEY, Chief Clerk (II) VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

3 CONTENTS JUNE 8, 2017 OPENING STATEMENTS Burr, Hon. Richard, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina... 1 Warner, Hon. Mark R., Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Virginia... 3 WITNESS James Comey, Former Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation... 5 (III) VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

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5 OPEN HEARING WITH FORMER FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017 U.S. SENATE, SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. in Room SH 216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Burr (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. Committee Members Present: Senators Burr, Warner, Risch, Rubio, Collins, Blunt, Lankford, Cotton, Cornyn, McCain, Feinstein, Wyden, Heinrich, King, Manchin, Harris, and Reed. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BURR, CHAIRMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH CAROLINA Chairman BURR. I d like to call this hearing to order. Director Comey, I appreciate your willingness to appear before the committee today and, more importantly, I thank you for your dedicated service and leadership to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Your appearance today speaks to the trust we have built over the years, and I m looking forward to a very open and candid discussion today. I d like to remind my colleagues that we will reconvene in closed session at 1:00 p.m. today and I ask that you reserve for that venue any questions that might get into classified information. The Director has been very gracious with his time, but the Vice Chairman and I have worked out a very specific timeline for his commitment to be on the Hill, so we will do everything we can to meet that agreement. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence exists to certify for the other 85 members of the United States Senate and the American people that the intelligence community is operating lawfully and has the necessary authorities and tools to accomplish its mission and keep America safe. Part of our mission, beyond the oversight we continue to provide to the intelligence community and its activities, is to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. The committee s work continues. This hearing represents part of that effort. Jim, allegations have been swirling in the press for the last several weeks and today s your opportunity to set the record straight. Yesterday, I read with interest your statement for the record. And I think it provides some helpful details surrounding your interactions with the President. (1) VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

6 2 It clearly lays out your understanding of those discussions, actions you took following each conversation, and your state of mind. I very much appreciate your candor and I think it s helpful as we work through to determine the ultimate truth behind possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Your statement also provides texture and context to your interactions with the President from your vantage point and outlines a strained relationship. The American people need to hear your side of the story just as they need to hear the President s descriptions of events. These interactions also highlight the importance of the committee s ongoing investigation. Our experienced staff is interviewing all relevant parties and some of the most sensitive intelligence in our country s possession. We will establish the facts, separate from rampant speculation, and lay them out for the American people to make their own judgment. Only then will we as a Nation be able to move forward and to put this episode to rest. There are several outstanding issues not addressed in your statement that I hope you ll clear up for the American people today. Did the President s request for loyalty, your impression that the one-onone dinner of January 27th was, and I quote, at least in part an effort to create some sort of patronage relationship, or his March 30th phone call asking what you could do to lift the cloud of Russia investigation in any way, alter your approach to the FBI s investigation into General Flynn or the broader investigation into Russia and possible links to the campaign? In your opinion, did potential Russian efforts to establish links with individuals in the Trump orbit rise to the level we could define as collusion or was it a counterintelligence concern? There s been significant public speculation about your decisionmaking related to the Clinton investigation. Why did you decide to publicly announce FBI s recommendations that the Department of Justice not pursue criminal charges? You have described it as a choice between a bad decision and a worse decision. The American people need to understand the facts behind your action. This committee is uniquely suited to investigate Russia s interference in the 2016 elections. We also have a unified, bipartisan approach to what is a highly charged partisan issue. Russian activities during the 2016 election may have been aimed at one party s candidate, but, as my colleague Senator Rubio says frequently, in 2018 and 2020 it could be aimed at anyone, at home or abroad. My colleague Senator Warner and I have worked to stay in lockstep on this investigation. We ve had our differences on approach at times, but I ve constantly stressed that we need to be a team. And I think Senator Warner agrees with me. We must keep these questions above politics and partisanship. It s too important to be tainted by anyone trying to score political points. With that, again I welcome you, Director, and I turn to the Vice Chairman for any comments he might have. VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

7 3 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA Vice Chairman WARNER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me start by again actually thanking all the members of the committee for the seriousness in which they ve taken on this task. Mr. Comey, thank you for agreeing to come testify as part of this committee s investigation into Russia. I realize that this hearing has been, obviously, the focus of a lot of Washington in the last few days. But the truth is many Americans who may be tuning in today probably haven t focused on every twist and turn of the investigation. So I d like to briefly describe, at least from this Senator s standpoint, what we already know and what we re still investigating. To be clear, this whole investigation is not about relitigating the election. It s not about who won or lost. And it sure as heck is not about Democrats versus Republicans. We re here because a foreign adversary attacked us right here at home, plain and simple, not by guns or missiles, but by foreign operatives seeking to hijack our most important democratic process our presidential election. Russian spies engaged in a series of online cyber raids and a broad campaign of disinformation, all ultimately aimed at sowing chaos to us to undermine public faith in our process, in our leadership, and ultimately in ourselves. And that s not just this Senator s opinion. It is the unanimous determination of the entire U.S. intelligence community. So we must find out the full story, what the Russians did, and, candidly, as some other colleagues have mentioned, why they were so successful. And more importantly, we must determine the necessary steps to take to protect our democracy and ensure they can t do it again. The Chairman mentioned elections in 2018 and In my home State of Virginia, we have elections this year, in Simply put, we cannot let anything or anyone prevent us from getting to the bottom of this. Now, Mr. Comey, let me say at the outset we haven t always agreed on every issue. In fact, I ve occasionally questioned some of the actions you ve taken. But I ve never had any reason to question your integrity, your expertise, or your intelligence. You ve been a straight shooter with this committee and have been willing to speak truth to power, even at the risk of your own career, which makes the way in which you were fired by the President ultimately shocking. Recall we began this entire process with the President and his staff first denying that the Russians were ever involved and then falsely claiming that no one from his team was ever in touch with any Russians. We know that s just not the truth. Numerous Trump associates had undisclosed contacts with Russians before and after the election, including the President s Attorney General, his former national security adviser and his current senior adviser, Mr. Kushner. That doesn t even begin to count the host of additional campaign associates and advisers who ve also been caught up in this massive web. We saw Mr. Trump s campaign manager, Mr. Manafort, forced to step down over ties to Russian-backed entities. The national se- VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

8 4 curity adviser, General Flynn, had to resign over his lies about engagements with the Russians. And we saw the candidate himself express an odd and unexplained affection for the Russian dictator, while calling for the hacking of his opponent. There s a lot to investigate. Enough, in fact that then-director Comey publicly acknowledged that he was leading an investigation into those links between Mr. Trump s campaign and the Russian government. As the Director of the FBI, Mr. Comey was ultimately responsible for conducting that investigation, which might explain why you re sitting now as a private citizen. What we didn t know was at the same time that this investigation was proceeding the President himself appears to have been engaged in an effort to influence, or at least co-opt, the Director of the FBI. The testimony that Mr. Comey has submitted for today s hearing is very disturbing. For example, on January 27th, after summoning Director Comey to dinner, the President appears to have threatened the Director s job while telling him, quote, I need loyalty. I expect loyalty. At a later meeting on February 14th, the President asked the Attorney General to leave the Oval Office so that he could privately ask Director Comey, again quote, to see a way clear to letting Flynn go. That is a statement that Director Comey interpreted as a request that he drop the investigation connected to General Flynn s false statements. Think about it: the President of the United States asking the FBI Director to drop an ongoing investigation. And after that, the President called the FBI Director on two additional occasions, March 30th and April 11th, and asked him again, quote, to lift the cloud on the Russian investigation. Now, Director Comey denied each of these improper requests: the loyalty pledge, the admonition to drop the Flynn investigation, the request to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation. Of course, after his refusals Director Comey was fired. The initial explanation for the firing didn t pass any smell test. So now Director Comey was fired because he didn t treat Hillary Clinton appropriately. Of course, that explanation lasted about a day, because the President himself then made very clear that he was thinking about Russia when he decided to fire Director Comey. Shockingly, reports suggest that the President admitted as much in an Oval Office meeting with the Russians the day after Director Comey was fired. Disparaging our country s top law enforcement official as a, quote/unquote, nut job. The President allegedly suggested that his firing relieved great pressure on his feelings about Russia. This is not happening in isolation. At the same time the President was engaged in these efforts with Director Comey, he was also, at least allegedly, asking senior leaders of the intelligence community to downplay the Russian investigation or to intervene with the Director. Yesterday, we had DNI Director Coats and NSA Director Admiral Rogers, who were offered a number of opportunities to flatly deny those press reports. They expressed their opinions, but they did not take that opportunity to deny those reports. They did not VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

9 5 take advantage of that opportunity. In my belief, that s not how the President of the United States should behave. Regardless of the outcome of our investigation into the Russia links, Director Comey s firing and his testimony raise separate and troubling questions that we must get to the bottom of. Again, as I said at the outset, I ve seen firsthand how seriously every member of this committee is taking his work. I m proud of the committee s efforts so far. Let me be clear: This is not a witch hunt. This is not fake news. It is an effort to protect our country from a new threat that, quite honestly, will not go away any time soon. So, Mr. Comey, your testimony here today will help us move towards that goal. I look forward to that testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman BURR. Thank you, Vice Chairman. Director, as discussed when you agreed to appear before the committee, it would be under oath. I d ask you to please stand. Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Director COMEY. I do. Chairman BURR. Please be seated. TESTIMONY OF JAMES COMEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Chairman BURR. Director Comey, you re now under oath. And I would just note to members, you will be recognized by seniority for a period up to seven minutes. And again, it is the intent to move to a closed session no later than 1:00 p.m. With that, Director Comey, you are recognized. You have the floor for as long as you might need. Director COMEY. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Warner, members of the committee: Thank you for inviting me here to testify today. I ve submitted my statement for the record and I m not going to repeat it here this morning. I thought I would just offer some very brief introductory remarks and then I would welcome your questions. When I was appointed FBI Director in 2013, I understood that I served at the pleasure of the President. Even though I was appointed to a 10-year term, which Congress created in order to underscore the importance of the FBI being outside of politics and independent, I understood that I could be fired by a President for any reason or for no reason at all. And on May the 9th, when I learned that I had been fired, for that reason I immediately came home as a private citizen. But then the explanations, the shifting explanations, confused me and increasingly concerned me. They confused me because the President and I had had multiple conversations about my job, both before and after he took office, and he had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay. And I had repeatedly assured him that I did intend to stay and serve out the remaining six years of my term. He told me repeatedly that he had talked to lots of people about me, including our current Attorney General, and had learned that VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

10 6 I was doing a great job and that I was extremely well-liked by the FBI workforce. So it confused me when I saw on television the President saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation and learned, again from the media, that he was telling privately other parties that my firing had relieved great pressure on the Russia investigation. I was also confused by the initial explanation that was offered publicly, that I was fired because of the decisions I had made during the election year. That didn t make sense to me for a whole bunch of reasons, including the time and all the water that had gone under the bridge since those hard decisions that had to be made. That didn t make any sense to me. And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI Director, the Administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple, and I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them and I m so sorry that the American people were told them. I worked every day at the FBI to help make that great organization better. And I say help because I did nothing alone at the FBI. There are no indispensable people at the FBI. The organization s great strength is that its values and abilities run deep and wide. The FBI will be fine without me. The FBI s mission will be relentlessly pursued by its people and that mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. I will deeply miss being part of that mission, but this organization and its mission will go on long beyond me and long beyond any particular administration. I have a message before I close for my former colleagues at the FBI. But first I want the American people to know this truth: The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is and always will be independent. And now to my former colleagues, if I may. I am so sorry that I didn t get the chance to say goodbye to you properly. It was the honor of my life to serve beside you, to be part of the FBI family. And I will miss it for the rest of my life. Thank you for standing watch. Thank you for doing so much good for this country. Do that good as long as ever you can. And, Senators, I look forward to your questions. Chairman BURR. Director, thank you for that testimony, both oral and the written testimony that you provided to the committee yesterday and made public to the American people. The Chair would recognize himself first for 12 minutes, Vice Chair for 12 minutes, based upon the agreement we have. Director, did the Special Counsel s Office review and/or edit your written testimony? Director COMEY. No. Chairman BURR. Do you have any doubt that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections? Director COMEY. None. VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

11 7 Chairman BURR. Do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the intrusions in the DNC and the DCCC systems and the subsequent leaks of that information? Director COMEY. No, no doubt. Chairman BURR. Do you have any doubt that the Russian government was behind the cyber intrusion in the State voter files? Director COMEY. No. Chairman BURR. Do you have any doubt that officials of the Russian government were fully aware of these activities? Director COMEY. No doubt. Chairman BURR. Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 Presidential election were altered? Director COMEY. I m confident. By the time when I left as Director, I had seen no indication of that whatsoever. Chairman BURR. Director Comey, did the President at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections? Director COMEY. Not to my understanding, no. Chairman BURR. Did any individual working for this Administration, including the Justice Department, ask you to stop the Russian investigation? Director COMEY. No. Chairman BURR. Director, when the President requested that you, and I quote, let Flynn go, General Flynn had an unreported contact with the Russians, which is an offense. And if press accounts are right, there might have been discrepancies between facts and his FBI testimony. In your estimation, was General Flynn at that time in serious legal jeopardy? And in addition to that, do you sense that the President was trying to obstruct justice or just seek for a way for Mike Flynn to save face, given he had already been fired? Director COMEY. General Flynn at that point in time was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves. And so that was my assessment at the time. I don t think it s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that s a conclusion I m sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that s an offense. Chairman BURR. Director, is it possible that as part of this FBI investigation the FBI could find evidence of criminality that is not tied to the 2016 elections, possible collusion, or coordination with Russians? Director COMEY. Sure. Chairman BURR. So there could be something that just fits a criminal aspect to this that doesn t have anything to do with the 2016 election cycle? Director COMEY. Correct. In any complex investigation, when you start turning over rocks, sometimes you find things that are unrelated to the primary investigation that are criminal in nature. Chairman BURR. Director Comey, you have been criticized publicly for the decision to present your findings on the investigation directly to the American people. Have you learned any- VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

12 8 thing since that time that would ve changed what you said, or how you chose to inform the American people? Director COMEY. Honestly, no. I mean, it caused a whole lot of personal pain for me, but as I look back, given what I knew at the time and even what I ve learned since, I think it was the best way to try and protect the justice institution, including the FBI. Chairman BURR. In the public domain is this question of the Steele dossier, a document that has been around now for over a year. I m not sure when the FBI first took possession of it, but the media had it before you had it and we had it. At the time of your departure from the FBI, was the FBI able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the Steele document? Director COMEY. Mr. Chairman, I don t think that s a question I can answer in an open setting because it goes into the details of the investigation. Chairman BURR. Director, the term we hear most often is collusion. When people are describing possible links between Americans and Russian government entities related to the interference in our election, would you say that it s normal for foreign governments to reach out to the members of an incoming administration? Director COMEY. Yes. Chairman BURR. At what point does the normal contact cross the line into an attempt to recruit agents or influence or spies? Director COMEY. Difficult to say in the abstract. It depends upon the context, whether there s an effort to keep it covert, what the nature of the requests made of the American by the foreign government are. It s a judgment call based on a whole lot of facts. Chairman BURR. At what point would that recruitment become a counterintelligence threat to our country? Director COMEY. Again, difficult to answer in the abstract. But when a foreign power is using especially coercion or some sort of pressure to try and co-opt an American, especially a government official, to act on its behalf, that s a serious concern to the FBI and at the heart of the FBI s counterintelligence mission. Chairman BURR. So if you ve got a 36-page document of specific claims that are out there, the FBI would have to, for counterintelligence reasons, try to verify anything that might be claimed in there. One, and probably first and foremost, is the counterintelligence concerns that we have about blackmail. Would that be an accurate statement? Director COMEY. Yes. If the FBI receives a credible allegation that there is some effort to co-opt, coerce, direct, employ covertly an American on behalf of the foreign power, that s the basis on which a counterintelligence investigation is opened. Chairman BURR. And when you read the dossier, what was your reaction, given that it was 100 percent directed at the Presidentelect? Director COMEY. Not a question I can answer in an open setting, Mr. Chairman. Chairman BURR. Okay. When did you become aware of the cyber intrusion? VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

13 9 Director COMEY. The first cyber it was all kinds of cyber intrusions going on all the time. The first Russia-connected cyber intrusion I became aware of in the late summer of Chairman BURR. And in that timeframe, there were more than the DNC and the DCCC that were targets? Director COMEY. Correct. It was a massive effort to target government and nongovernmental near-governmental agencies like nonprofits. Chairman BURR. What would be the estimate of how many entities out there the Russians specifically targeted in that timeframe? Director COMEY. It s hundreds. I suppose it could be more than a thousand, but it s at least hundreds. Chairman BURR. When did you become aware that data had been exfiltrated? Director COMEY. I m not sure, exactly. I think either late 2015 or early Chairman BURR. And did you, the Director of the FBI, have conversations with the last Administration about the risk that this posed? Director COMEY. Yes. Chairman BURR. And share with us, if you will, what actions they took. Director COMEY. Well, the FBI had already undertaken an effort to notify all the victims, and that s what we consider the entities that were attacked as part of this massive spear phishing campaign. And so we notified them in an effort to disrupt what might be ongoing. Then there was a series of continuing interactions with entities through the rest of 2015 into 2016, and then throughout 2016 the Administration was trying to decide how to respond to the intrusion activity that it saw. Chairman BURR. And the FBI in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate, did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected? Director COMEY. In the case of the DNC, and I believe the DCCC, but I m sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn t get direct access. Chairman BURR. But no content? Director COMEY. Correct. Chairman BURR. Isn t content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint? Director COMEY. It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks, the people who were my folks at the time, is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of Chairman BURR. Let me go back, if I can, very briefly, to the decision to publicly go out with your results on the . Was your decision influenced by the Attorney General s tarmac meeting with the former President, Bill Clinton? Director COMEY. Yes, in an ultimately conclusive way. That was the thing that capped it for me that I had to do something sepa- VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

14 10 rately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department. Chairman BURR. Were there other things that contributed to that that you can describe in an open session? Director COMEY. There were other things that contributed to that. One significant item I can t, I know the committee s been briefed on. There s been some public accounts of it, which are nonsense, but I understand the committee s been briefed on the classified facts. Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is at one point the Attorney General had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me. But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the Department if we re to close this case credibly. Chairman BURR. Director, my last question: You re not only a seasoned prosecutor, you ve led the FBI for years. You understand the investigative process. You ve worked with this committee closely, and we re grateful to you because I think we ve mutually built trust in what your organization does and what we do. Is there any doubt in your mind that this committee can carry out its oversight role in the 2016 Russian involvement in the elections in parallel with the now special counsel that s been set up? Director COMEY. No, no doubt. It can be done. It requires lots of conversations, but Bob Mueller is one of this country s great, great pros. And I m sure you all will be able to work it out with him to run it in parallel. Chairman BURR. I want to thank you once again, and I want to turn to the Vice Chairman. Vice Chairman WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, Director Comey, thank you for your service. Your comments to your FBI family I know were heartfelt. Know that, even though there are some in the Administration who ve tried to smear your reputation, you had Acting Director McCabe in public testimony a few weeks back and in public testimony yesterday reaffirm that the vast majority of the FBI community had great trust in your leadership and, obviously, trust in your integrity. I want to go through a number of the meetings that you referenced in your testimony. And let s start with the January 6th meeting in Trump Tower, where you went up with a series of officials to brief the President-elect on the Russia investigation. My understanding is you remained afterwards to brief him on, again, quote, some personally sensitive aspects of the information you relayed. Now, you said after that briefing you felt compelled to document that conversation, that you actually started documenting it soon as you got into the car. Now, you ve had extensive experience at the Department of Justice and at the FBI. You ve worked under Presidents of both parties. What was it about that meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record? Director COMEY. A combination of things, I think: the circumstances, the subject matter, and the person I was interacting VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

15 11 with. Circumstances first: I was alone with the President of the United States or the President-elect, soon to be President. The subject matter: I was talking about matters that touch on the FBI s core responsibility and that relate to the President President-elect personally. And then the nature of the person: I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document. That combination of things I d never experienced before, but it led me to believe I ve got to write it down, and I ve got to write it down in a very detailed way. Vice Chairman WARNER. I think that s a very important statement you just made. And my understanding is that then, again unlike your dealings with Presidents of either parties in your past experience, in every subsequent meeting or conversation with this President you created a written record. Did you feel that you needed to create this written record or these memos because they might need to be relied on at some future date? Director COMEY. Sure. I created records after conversations, and I think I did it after each of our nine conversations. If I didn t, I did it for nearly all of them, especially the ones that were substantive. I knew that there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function. That s what made this so difficult, is it was a combination of circumstances, subject matter, and the particular person. Vice Chairman WARNER. And so, in all your experience this was the only President that you felt like in every meeting you needed to document, because at some point, using your words, he might put out a non-truthful representation of that meeting? Director COMEY. That s right, Senator. And as I said in my written testimony, as FBI Director I interacted with President Obama. I spoke only twice alone in three years, and didn t document it. When I was Deputy Attorney General, I had one one-on-one meeting with President Bush about a very important and difficult national security matter. I didn t write a memo documenting that conversation either sent a quick to my staff to let them know there was something going on, but I didn t feel with President Bush the need to document it in that way, again because the combination of those factors just wasn t present with either President Bush or President Obama. Vice Chairman WARNER. I think that is very significant. I think others will probably question that. Now, the Chairman and I have requested those memos. It is our hope that the FBI will get this committee access to those memos so that, again, we can read that contemporaneous rendition so that we ve got your side of the story. Now, I know members have said and press has said that if you were a great deal s been made of whether the President you were asked to, in effect, indicate whether the President was the subject of any investigation. VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

16 12 And my understanding is prior to your meeting on January 6th you discussed with your leadership team whether or not you should be prepared to assure then President-elect Trump that the FBI was not investigating him personally. Now, my understanding is your leadership team agreed with that. But was that a unanimous decision? Was there any debate about that? Director COMEY. Was it unanimous? One of the members of the leadership team had a view that, although it was technically true we did not have a counterintelligence file case open on then-president-elect Trump, his concern was because we re looking at the potential again, that s the subject of the investigation coordination between the campaign and Russia, because it was President Trump, President-elect Trump s campaign, this person s view was inevitably his behavior, his conduct, will fall within the scope of that work, and so he was reluctant to make the statement that I made. I disagreed. I thought it was fair to say what was literally true: There is not a counterintelligence investigation of Mr. Trump. And I decided in the moment to say it, given the nature of our conversation. Vice Chairman WARNER. At that moment in time. Did you ever revisit that in these subsequent sessions? Director COMEY. With the FBI leadership team? Vice Chairman WARNER. With the team with your team. Director COMEY. Sure, and the leader who had that view, it didn t change. His view was still that it was probably although literally true, his concern was it could be misleading because the nature of the investigation was such that it might well touch obviously, it would touch the campaign, and the person at the head of the campaign would be the candidate. And so that was his view throughout. Vice Chairman WARNER. Let me move to the January 27th dinner, where you said, quote, The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director. He also indicated that lots of people again, your words wanted the job. You go on to say that the dinner itself was seemingly an effort to quote, have you ask him for your job, and create some sort of, quote-unquote, patronage relationship. The President seems, from my reading of your memo, to be holding your job or your possibility of continuing in your job over your head in a fairly direct way. What was your impression and what did you mean by this notion of a patronage relationship? Director COMEY. Well, my impression and, again, it s my impression. I could always be wrong. But my common sense told me that what was going on is either he had concluded or someone had told him that you didn t you ve already asked Comey to stay and you didn t get anything for it; and that the dinner was an effort to build a relationship in fact, he asked specifically of loyalty in the context of asking me to stay. And as I said, what was odd about that is we d already talked twice about it by that point and he d said, I very much hope you ll stay, I hope you ll stay. In fact, I just remembered sitting here a third one. When you ve seen the picture of me walking across the Blue Room. And what VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

17 13 the President whispered in my ear was, I really look forward to working with you. So, after those encounters Vice Chairman WARNER. And that was just a few days before you were fired? Director COMEY. Yeah, that was on the 20 the Sunday after the Inauguration. The next Friday, I have dinner and the President begins by wanting to talk about my job. And so I m sitting there thinking: Wait a minute, three times we ve already you ve already asked me to stay or talked about me staying. And my common sense again, I could be wrong, but my common sense told me what s going on here is that he s looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job. Vice Chairman WARNER. And again, we all understand. I was a governor, I had people work for me. But this constant requests and, again quoting you, him saying that, despite you explaining your independence, he kept coming back to I need loyalty. I expect loyalty. Had you ever had any of those kind of requests before, from anyone else you d worked for in the government? Director COMEY. No, and what made me uneasy was I m at that point the Director of the FBI. The reason that Congress created a ten-year term is so that the Director is not feeling as if they re serving with political loyalty owed to any particular person. The statue of Justice has a blindfold on because you re not supposed to be peeking out to see whether your patron is pleased or not with what you re doing. It should be about the facts and the law. That s why I became FBI Director, to be in that kind of position. So that s why I was so uneasy. Vice Chairman WARNER. Well, let me let me move on. My time s running out. February 14th again, it seems a bit strange. You were in a meeting. And your direct superior, the Attorney General, was in that meeting, as well. Yet the President asked everyone to leave, including the Attorney General to leave, before he brought up the matter of General Flynn. What was your impression of that type of action? Had you ever seen anything like that before? Director COMEY. No. My impression was, something big is about to happen. I need to remember every single word that is spoken. And again, I could be wrong, but I m 56 years old. I ve seen a few things. My sense was the Attorney General knew he shouldn t be leaving, which is why he was lingering. And I don t know Mr. Kushner well, but I think he picked up on the same thing. And so I knew something was about to happen that I needed to pay very close attention to. Vice Chairman WARNER. And I found it very interesting that, in the memo that you wrote after this February 14th pull-aside, you made clear that you wrote that memo in a way that was unclassified. If you affirmatively made the decision to write a memo that was unclassified, was that because you felt at some point the facts of that meeting would have to come clean and come clear and actually be able to be cleared in a way that could be shared with the American people? VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

18 14 Director COMEY. Well, I remember thinking, this is a very disturbing development, really important to our work, I need to document it and preserve it in a way and this committee gets this, but sometimes when things are classified, it tangles them up. It s hard Vice Chairman WARNER. Amen. Director COMEY [continuing]. To share it within an investigative team. You have to be very careful about how you handle it, for good reason. So my thinking was, if I write it in such a way that I don t include anything that would trigger a classification, that ll make it easier for us to discuss within the FBI and the government, and to hold on to it in a way that makes it accessible to us. Vice Chairman WARNER. Well, again, it s our hope, particularly since you re a pretty knowledgeable guy and you wrote this in a way that was unclassified, that this committee will get access to that unclassified document. I think it ll be very important to our investigation. Let me just ask this in closing: How many ongoing investigations at any time does the FBI have going on? Director COMEY. Tens of thousands. Vice Chairman WARNER. Tens of thousands. Did the President ever ask about any other ongoing investigation? Director COMEY. No. Vice Chairman WARNER. Did he ever ask about you trying to interfere on any other investigation? Director COMEY. No. Vice Chairman WARNER. I think again this speaks volumes. This doesn t even get to the questions around the phone calls about lifting the cloud. I know other members will get to that, but I really appreciate your testimony and appreciate your service to our Nation. Director COMEY. Thank you, Senator Warner. You know, just I m sitting here, going through my contacts with him. I had one conversation with the President that was classified, where he asked about an ongoing intelligence investigation. It was brief and entirely professional. Vice Chairman WARNER. But he didn t ask you to take any specific action on that? Director COMEY. No, no. Vice Chairman WARNER. Unlike what he had done vis-á-vis Mr. Flynn and the overall Russia investigation? Director COMEY. Correct. Vice Chairman WARNER. Thank you, sir. Chairman BURR. Senator Risch. Senator RISCH. Thank you very much. Mr. Comey, thank you for your service. America needs more like you, and we really appreciate it. Yesterday I got and everybody got the seven pages of your direct testimony that s now a part of the record here. And the first I read it, then I read it again, and all I could think was, number one, how much I hated the class of legal writing when I was in law school. And you were the guy that probably got the A, after reading this. So I find it clear, I find it concise, and, having been a prosecutor for a number of years and handling hundreds, maybe thou- VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

19 15 sands, of cases and read police reports, investigative reports, this is as good as it gets. And I really appreciate that, not only the conciseness and the clearness of it, but also the fact that you have things that were written down contemporaneously when they happened and you actually put them in quotes, so we know exactly what happened and we re not getting some rendition of it that in your mind. Director COMEY. Thank you, Senator. Senator RISCH. So you re to be complimented for that. Director COMEY. I had great parents and great teachers who beat that into me. Senator RISCH. That s obvious, sir. The Chairman walked you through a number of things that the American people need to know and want to know. Number one, obviously we all know about the active measures that the Russians have taken. I think a lot of people were surprised at this. Those of us that work in the intelligence community, it didn t come as a surprise. But now the American people know this, and it s good they know this because this is serious and it s a problem. I think, secondly, I gather from all this that you re willing to say now that while you were Director the President of the United States was not under investigation. Is that a fair statement? Director COMEY. That s correct. Senator RISCH. All right. So that s a fact that we can rely on. Director COMEY. Yes, sir. Senator RISCH. Okay. I remember you talked with us shortly after February 14th, when the New York Times wrote an article that suggested that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians. You remember reading that article when it first came out? Director COMEY. I do. It was about allegedly extensive electronic surveillance Senator RISCH. Correct. Director COMEY [continuing]. Of communications, yes. Senator RISCH. And that upset you to the point where you actually went out and surveyed the intelligence community to see whether you were missing something in that. Is that correct? Director COMEY. That s correct. I want to be careful in an open setting, but Senator RISCH. I m not going to go any further than that with it, so thank you. Director COMEY. Okay. Senator RISCH. In addition to that, after that you sought out both Republican and Democrat Senators to tell them that, hey, I don t know where this is coming from, but this is not the case, this is not factual. Do you recall that? Director COMEY. Yes. Senator RISCH. Okay. So again, so the American people can understand this, that report by the New York Times was not true. Is that a fair statement? Director COMEY. In the main, it was not true. And again, all of you know this and maybe the American people don t. The challenge and I m not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information is that people talking about it often VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN

20 16 don t really know what s going on, and those of us who actually know what s going on are not talking about it. And we don t call the press to say, hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic. We just have to leave it there. I mentioned to the Chairman the nonsense around what influenced me to make the July 5th statement. Nonsense, but I can t go explaining how it s nonsense. Senator RISCH. Thank you. All right. So those three things we now know regarding the active measures, whether the President s under investigation, and the collusion between the Russians the Trump campaign and the Russians. I want to drill right down, as my time is limited, to the most recent dust-up regarding allegations that the President of the United States obstructed justice. And, boy, you nailed this down on page 5, paragraph 3. You put this in quotes. Words matter. You wrote down the words so we can all have the words in front of us now. There s 28 words there that are in quotes, and it says, quote, I hope this is the President speaking I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. Now those are his exact words, is that correct? Director COMEY. Correct. Senator RISCH. And you wrote them here and you put them in quotes? Director COMEY. Correct. Senator RISCH. Okay. Thank you for that. He did not direct you to let it go? Director COMEY. Not in his words, no. Senator RISCH. He did not order you to let it go? Director COMEY. Again, those words are not an order. Senator RISCH. No. He said, I hope. Now, like me, you probably did hundreds of cases, maybe thousands of cases, charging people with criminal offenses. And of course you have knowledge of the thousands of cases out there where people have been charged. Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense, where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? Director COMEY. I don t know well enough to answer. And the reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction. Senator RISCH. Right. Director COMEY. I mean, this is the President of the United States with me alone, saying, I hope this. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. I didn t obey that, but that s the way I took it. Senator RISCH. You may have taken it as a direction, but that s not what he said. Director COMEY. Correct. That s why Senator RISCH. He said I hope. Director COMEY. Those are exact words, correct. Senator RISCH. You don t know of anyone that s ever been charged for hoping something. Is that a fair statement? Director COMEY. I don t as I sit here. Senator RISCH. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman BURR. Senator Feinstein. VerDate Sep :47 Oct 30, 2017 Jkt PO Frm Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\25890.TXT SHAUN